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Project tailoring is the modification of a standard project management methodology to reduce risk by accommodating the unique business and project characteristics of the project.

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Quick reference

Project Tailoring

Project tailoring is the modification of a standard project management methodology to reduce risk by accommodating the unique business and project characteristics of the project.

When to use

Tailoring can be done at any time in the project lifecycle.  It is often specifically addressed at the time of project authorization, project planning, and adapting to project lessons learned.  However, it can be done at any time.

Instructions

Tailoring is the adaptation of the project approach to accommodate the real-world constraints and attributes of the project. Every project is unique, so every project should be tailored for its uniqueness. The goal of tailoring is to reduce risk.  The tailoring considers the high threat risk elements of the project and seeks to eliminate or mitigate those and the tailoring considers the opportunity risks on the project and seeks to take advantage of those.

Every project management decision is essentially a tailoring decision.  The inclusion, elimination, or modification of tasks is tailoring.  The assignment of individuals is a form of tailoring.  Estimating the costs and duration of tasks should be tailored based upon the skill of the resources and the difficulty of the task on the specific project. Adding, deleting, or modifying project meetings and reviews are forms of tailoring the project management approach.  

Virtually every aspect of the organization and management of a project can be tailored:

  • Life cycle tailoring focuses on the inclusion, exclusion, and sequence of phases, gates, and reviews.
  • Process tailoring considers how the various project activities will be accomplished by adding, removing, modifying, and combining activities.
  • Engagement tailoring focuses on the people involved and their level of skill, empowerment, and autonomy.
  • Tools, methods, and artifacts are tailored based upon unique project requirements and commonly used tools

Tailoring Process

While there are many ways to approach tailoring, I have found this process to work very well:

  1. Select the baseline methodology, such as toll-gate or Agile, to provide a framework from which to start, the baseline should be something familiar to the team and appropriate for the type of project.
  2. Tailor for unique business and industry constraints.  These are often tied to overriding business strategy or resource issues.  Also, depending upon the project, there may be industry oversight and regulatory reviews or deliverables that are mandated.  Incorporate these constants into your project approach.  These constraints seldom change during the project.
  3. Tailor for unique project constraints such as capability and capacity of team members or complexity and ambiguity within the project requirements. These constraints frequently change during the project.
  4. Tailor to incorporate continuous improvement.  When the project team finds that something does not work well and something else works very well, they should tailor the remainder of the project to accommodate their findings.  Recall the goal is to reduce threat risk. Whenever risk is identified and can be eliminated or mitigated, the project should be tailored to accommodate it.

Hints & tips

  • Tailoring should not be considered a failure of project management but rather a success.  It should be encouraged, within reason.
  • There needs to be a reason for all tailoring decisions.  If there is not a good reason to change the established project management methodology, then don’t. There was probably a good reason the methodology was designed that way.
  • With every tailoring decision, you should be able to clearly state how this reduces risk.  The risk could be a technical risk, cost risk, or schedule risk.
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  • 00:00 Hi, I'm Ray Sheen.
  • 00:05 A key principle of project management is tailoring your methodology and
  • 00:09 approach for the unique project circumstances.
  • 00:12 Let's spend a few minutes to discuss this aspect of project management.
  • 00:16 First, let's recognize that the goal of tailoring is to reduce project risk,
  • 00:21 not increase it.
  • 00:22 That is why we tailor the project management methodology and methods,
  • 00:26 artifacts and tools so that they will more closely fit the project.
  • 00:31 Applying an inappropriate method or using a technique incorrectly can
  • 00:35 increase risk by masking issues rather than reducing risk by exposing issues.
  • 00:40 Two areas in particular where tailoring is done are project planning and
  • 00:45 project control.
  • 00:47 In fact, you can make a case that every project plan is tailoring for
  • 00:51 the unique deliverables for that project.
  • 00:53 The plan also is structured to fit within the unique time period of the project and
  • 00:58 use the unique resources.
  • 01:00 During the planning, we want to tailor to avoid unnecessary tasks which
  • 01:05 waste time and money and focus on critical tasks to reduce negative threats.
  • 01:11 As the same time we tailor to take advantage of positive
  • 01:15 opportunity risks within our plan.
  • 01:17 This approach continues as we begin to execute and provide oversight and
  • 01:21 control of our project activities.
  • 01:23 The project manager and
  • 01:25 team tailor their work to react to day to day issues and opportunities.
  • 01:31 When I'm working with project teams I recommend they consciously stop and
  • 01:35 tailor their approach at the beginning of each phase or sprint.
  • 01:38 There are things learned in the previous phase or
  • 01:41 sprint that can help the team to create a better plan going forward.
  • 01:44 And of course,
  • 01:45 every project management decision is essentially a tailoring decision.
  • 01:50 The project management is deciding how to uniquely respond to current project
  • 01:55 issues and current opportunities.
  • 01:57 When tailoring at the beginning of the phase or sprint, I highlight the key
  • 02:01 decisions to be made during the upcoming phase or sprint, the tasks activities and
  • 02:07 personnel needed to make the decisions identified in the project plan.
  • 02:11 Tailoring is risk reduction and everything I just discussed is meant to reduce
  • 02:16 threat risks, so that the probability of project success increases.
  • 02:21 So let's dig into this concept of tailoring.
  • 02:24 There are many different elements of project planning control that can be
  • 02:28 tailored, one decision to make is to determine the type and
  • 02:32 degree of tailoring required for a given project.
  • 02:35 Lifecycle tailoring focuses on the big picture.
  • 02:38 It looks at the number and sequence of phases or sprints, it also
  • 02:42 includes the timing of external reviews and decision gates within the project.
  • 02:47 The project process can also be tailored.
  • 02:49 This is the timing sequence and methods used for project management activities,
  • 02:54 such as planning and risk analysis.
  • 02:56 This type of tailoring is at the task level on the project.
  • 03:00 Tasks are added, removed, combined, or modified
  • 03:03 in some manner based upon the unique project constraints and deliverables.
  • 03:07 Another important aspect of tailoring is to determine which individual or
  • 03:11 organizations you will engage with in terms of relationship for the project.
  • 03:15 Essentially deciding who has input to project activities or approvals,
  • 03:20 the more people the more potential buy in but also the longer to get decisions.
  • 03:26 And depending upon whose voice is excluded,
  • 03:28 there may be a critical oversight in the project results.
  • 03:32 Finally, specific tools methods and activities are tailored for
  • 03:36 the specific project requirements and boundaries.
  • 03:39 There are many different tools and methods available, so
  • 03:43 some of the tailoring will be to leverage the familiarity and
  • 03:46 competence of the team in certain tools over others.
  • 03:49 Let's finish this discussion with the process of project tailoring.
  • 03:54 Let me start by saying that there is no single right way to tailor.
  • 03:58 However, in my experience, this process works well, so I'm suggesting it for you.
  • 04:04 Start with the organization's normal project management methodology.
  • 04:08 You don't need to reinvent the wheel, so start with the approach that is known and
  • 04:13 understood by most of your organization.
  • 04:15 Now if the organization has multiple methodologies,
  • 04:18 pick the one that you believe is best suited for this project because it
  • 04:22 aligns with the experience of the team and the project goals.
  • 04:25 Next, consider any organization or industry constraints.
  • 04:29 For instance, the PMO may require monthly project reviews, or
  • 04:33 regulatory body may require approval steps at interim points in the project.
  • 04:37 Tailor the methodology and tailor the format and timing of reviews,
  • 04:41 deliverables or decisions based upon the constraints.
  • 04:45 Third, tailor the project for unique project considerations.
  • 04:49 This could include the reuse of material or
  • 04:51 deliverables developed on another project, the skills and
  • 04:54 experience of specific team members when accomplishing a project task.
  • 04:58 The need for task concurrency to accommodate a deadline or the means for
  • 05:02 managing complexity aspects of the project due to the scope or
  • 05:06 organizational structure.
  • 05:07 The tailoring is based upon doing a realistic assessment of the real
  • 05:12 work of the project.
  • 05:14 It's common for some of the tasks in the normal methodology to be modified or
  • 05:18 eliminated, and there may be a need to add additional tasks or
  • 05:22 activities due to risk and complexity.
  • 05:25 Well, the project plan has been tailored, but you're not done tailoring.
  • 05:29 Now you need to review lessons learned on the project and
  • 05:32 make appropriate modifications throughout the lifecycle of the project.
  • 05:37 Are your estimates for certain activities too high or too low?
  • 05:41 Is a particular meeting or communication approach working well, or
  • 05:44 should it be changed?
  • 05:46 Was there confusion on a task that has been completed?
  • 05:48 And is that confusion likely to persist on other tasks?
  • 05:52 Whatever the positive or negative lessons learned have been,
  • 05:56 use them to revise and improve the management of the project.
  • 06:00 Every project should be tailored to adapt to the realities of the real world.
  • 06:04 Tailoring is not a failure of project management rather it is a best practice of
  • 06:09 successful project management.

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